US President Donald Trump has threatened North Korean leader Kim Jong-un with “decimation,” unless he agrees to denuclearise the Korean peninsula.

With the June 12 US-North Korea summit at stake, Trump on Thursday gave Kim two options — reach an agreement to denuclearize and remain in power or suffer the fate of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who was overthrown and murdered by rebels who were supported by a NATO bombing campaign in 2011, Efe news reported.

“If you look at that model with Gaddafi, that was a total decimation. We went in there to beat him. Now that model would take place if we don’t make a deal, most likely,” Trump told reporters prior to his meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the White House.

“But if we make a deal, I think Kim Jong-un is going to be very, very happy,” the president added.

Trump, however, said that the United States is not using “the Libyan model” in its negotiations with North Korea, distancing himself from National Security Adviser John Bolton, who had explicitly mentioned “the Libya model of 2003-2004” as a basis for talks with Pyongyang.

In 2003, Muammar Gaddafi agreed to eliminate his country’s weapons of mass destruction in exchange for US economic incentives, although the agreement purportedly did not give Gaddafi any security guarantees.

By “Libyan model,” Trump seemed to be referring to the 2011 NATO bombing campaign against the Libyan government, which helped rebels overthrow Gaddafi, who was soon brutally murdered by these groups.

Kim Jong accuses US of pressurising N.Korea

“The Libyan model isn’t the model we have at all when we are thinking of North Korea. In Libya, we decimated that country … There was no deal to keep Gaddafi,” Trump said.

“This with Kim Jong-un would be something where he would be there. He would be running his country. His country would be very rich,” the president added.

Trump said that if Kim Jong-un agreed to denuclearize, “he’ll get protections that would be very strong,” referring to guarantees for Kim to remain in power.

Trump also downplayed Pyongyang’s threats to pull out of the US-North Korea summit planned for June 12 in Singapore, saying “North Korea’s actually talking to us about times and everything else as though nothing happened.”

“Our people are literally dealing with them right now,” Trump added. (IANS)

A South Korean fashion and cosmetics firm has stirred controversy with a facial mask featuring Kim Jong-un prompting many stores to pull the product of the shelves.

The so-called “nuke masks” were created by 5149, a South Korean fashion and cosmetics company. It said it has sold more than 25,000 “unification moisture nuclear masks” since June, the BBC reported.

Many South Korean stores, though, halted the sales amid a public backlash and concerns over the masks’ legality.

In South Korea it is illegal to speak favourably of the North Korean government, though the law is rarely enforced.

Dozens of Koreans have posted pictures of themselves on social media with the masks, which cost 4,000 won, the BBC said.

Propaganda-style slogans claim the masks contain mineral water from Mount Paektu, the sacred, active volcano, which is the birthplace of Dangun, founder of the first Korean kingdom more than 4,000 years ago, according to Korean mythology.

“Personally, I don’t like merchandise promoting a certain political agenda,” Irene Kim, a South Korean skincare expert, told the South China Morning Post.

“A few years ago, North Korea was the largest threat to our country… Kim Jong-un was seen as a dictator and a tyrant who would stop at nothing to disrupt world peace, now he’s become the face of a popular face mask,” she added.

Kim Jong Un.

The North Korean leader and his regime have been criticised by the UN for “systematic, widespread” human rights abuses.

Both North and South Korea are still technically at war, but leaders from both countries attended talks this year over denuclearisation.